


Last Time

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-03
Updated: 2005-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-19 20:59:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12418050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: You only have one thought in your mind every time you walk up to her: "This is going to be the last time I do this." Of James and the turmoil in his mind as he approaches that beautiful redheaded girl.





	Last Time

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**Last Time**

 

**Summary:** You only have one thought in your mind every time you walk up to her: "This is going to be the last time I do this."

 

**Dedication:** Pantz! You are truly one amazing writer.

 

**Disclaimer:** Nope, don’t own nothing. I mean, anything.

 

Every time you manage to pick up the pieces of your shattered “Gryffindor”� courage (Hah!) from your last rejection, you have one thought in your mind as you walk up to her again.

 

_This is going to be the last time I do this._

 

Not a very typical thought for your situation. Then again, you were never very typical, were you? Maybe that’s what all of your friends saw in you, the nonconforming you. And although your peers think only the highest of you, like four marauding idols meant to be at the top of the social ladder, you mused once that you four only had the strongest bonds of friendship because of the quality of being different from the rest, the rest of them.

 

Sirius was the real renegade, the rebel blown clear off the family tree, a deviant beacon of good looks and loud laughter and mischievous sparkles that sprung from a family of darkness and evil. Remus was the real outcast of society, the boy who never knew how to really be normal, because being a Dark creature doesn’t spell out normal in this warring world. Peter was the exception to the four, and sometimes you pitied him because of that. He looks up to the other three of you like a little boy admires his older brothers. And among you four, already unusual, he was still an odd one out.

 

The fact that the four of you were somehow different, breaking the mold, so to speak, bound you to each other.

 

And sometimes you catch your mind wandering off like this, but then you think again,

 

_This is going to be the last time I do this._

 

It’s like some sort of mantra, rolling over and over around in that head of yours. That head that she declares is so big, so blown-up with pride and arrogance and “prattiness,”� if that ever be a word.

 

And you sometimes wonder how those eleven words came to be your broken record, chanting at you from the inside. Maybe it’s because Sirius jokes that she’s bad for your health because she sparks this passion in you. But you don’t think he’s joking sometimes, just because he’s afraid, like you’re afraid. Because maybe being the odd one out, along with your three brothers, isn’t strong enough for a craze like yours for this one fiery girl. And yet, once this thought enters your mind, you counter that it's impossible, simply impossible, because you four are connected by your very souls.

 

Maybe **_fear_** is why you tell yourself you have to quit doing this, quit this addiction. It may kill one of the most important things you value so much in your life. Because she isn’t worth losing those three people with whom you share your everything. She isn’t, she can’t, be worth tearing apart the greatest quartet of friends you have ever known. So your mind screams that,

 

_This is going to be the last time I do this._

 

Or maybe you think it because it's your practical side, ordering you to not do this anymore, because you’re **_sick_** of it. You're sick. Because you don’t think you can stand this anymore, don’t think you can stand the constant refusals. Don’t think you can stand to see how she doesn’t see you for what you want her to see, don’t think you can stand to show her the worst of you, because that’s all she sees. You don’t think you can stand to see how she doesn’t even think you’re being so desperate, so sincere when you do this every time, every time since fifth year, because although you started in third year, you’ve come to realize that you really want this, this one chance to be with her and to win her over. There’s only so much one’s heart can take, you think. And every time you manage to stumble around blindly and gather the broken bits of your heart and then decide to do it all over again, you think,

 

_This is going to be the last time I do this._

 

Or maybe it’s some subconscious **_hope_** inside you that you don’t know you have. Some kind of burning dream, like a child’s innocent wish for a broom for his birthday, that maybe this will be the last time. It will be the last time not because you decide it is, but because she makes it the last time. And maybe that hope you don’t know you have inside of you is part of the reason you say,

 

_This is going to be the last time I do this._

 

But you don’t notice that something’s different this time. You don’t see that your feet are shuffling and stumbling instead of strutting or attempting to strut. You don’t catch that look in her eyes that has changed. It’s been one whole year, to the day, since you’ve done this. It has taken one whole year, to the day, to pull together those fractions of your heart from the last rejection, to bind them up again and recharge them with courage from some unknown source, because Merlin knows that you’ve only been placed in Gryffindor because you didn’t fit the other houses. It was one whole year ago, to the day; that’s how long it took to bind your heart whole again. And all you can think is,

 

_This is going to be the last time I do this._

 

“Hey–hey, Lily?”�

 

You somehow swallow as you say the words, making your speech strained into some sort of jumble. Your voice is quiet, but maybe that’s just because it’s the library. Or maybe that’s just what you think.

 

Maybe this is all just what you think. But reality has a funny way of being contorted and twisted when someone thinks the way you do.

 

You suddenly realize your stomach has swallowed the rest of your question. No! It can’t be happening! You’ve come all this way.

 

You recklessly throw yourself into a blind effort...to look up. And into her beautifully captivating eyes. They’re sparkling with a smile you didn’t know could be directed at you.

 

It hits you. And you realize that **_she_** is the reason you do this. Every single time. She is the source of your greatest courage, your deepest fear, and your driving force. She is your enigma, your fire, your answer. It hits you and you suddenly find the rest of your question.

 

“Will–will you go to Hogsmeade with me? This weekend?”�

 

And you don’t know it just yet, but this is going to be the last time you do this.

 

**_Finis_ **

 

.mische.


End file.
